Academic tenure has been a significant component of American higher education over the last century. When a college or university faculty member receives tenure, their job cannot be easily or arbitrarily terminated. Historically and currently, this protects faculty from having their positions terminated due to expressing an opinion that differs from those of the institution’s funders. Tenured faculty can certainly still be dismissed under some conditions.
Tenure has had broader impacts on social life surrounding higher education. The time spent working toward tenure, and the benefits of working with tenure, encourage faculty to settle down into their college or university’s surrounding community. Tenure facilitates stability, institutional memory, and culture for institutions and college towns. Institutions of higher education where instructors swiftly come and go do not offer students the same kind of community and opportunity.
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For these reasons, it is worth paying attention to tenure trends in North Dakota. Just as tenure at North Dakota’s colleges and universities has shaped our communities, its decline unravels aspects of our communities. As such, I am revisiting the trends and updating readers on this subject as I have for several years in my column.
Full-time tenured and tenure-track positions in North Dakota have declined by 220 positions from 2015-16 to 2022-23, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Averaging a loss of about 31 positions per year, North Dakota’s tenure/tenure-track faculty have decreased from 1,448 in the 2015-16 school year to 1,228 in 2022-23.
What is driving this trend? First, it is important to note that among our state’s five tribal colleges -- Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College, Sitting Bull College, Turtle Mountain Community College and United Tribes Technical College -- there is no tenure process. North Dakota’s four private institutions -- Trinity Bible College, University of Jamestown, University of Mary and for-profit Rasmussen University -- also have no tenure process. Meanwhile, each of our state’s 11 public colleges and universities have some form of tenure. Therefore, tenure’s decline in North Dakota is driven entirely by our public institutions.
Is the decline in tenure driven by lower student enrollments? Declines in student enrollment play a role in explaining decreases in tenure-track positions, but there is much more to the picture. If declining student enrollment was, on its own, the cause of the decrease in tenure-track positions, then surely all other staff positions should be similarly decreasing. However, this is not so.
Statewide, full-time instructional positions that are not on the tenure track have been increasing over the 2015-16 to 2022-23 period. Part-time instructors have also been on the rise in this same period. Meanwhile, full-time non-instructional staff positions have decreased while part-time non-instructional staff positions have increased.
Ultimately, declines in staffing have not simply mirrored changing student enrollment. Instead, higher-quality jobs are being replaced by lower-quality jobs. Namely, tenure-track jobs are being replaced by jobs that are not on the tenure track. And generally, full-time positions are being replaced by part-time positions. These trends also mean that benefited positions are being replaced by unbenefited positions. However, declining job quality is not unique to higher education. Workers in a variety of sectors are disappointed by the scarcity of high-quality jobs.
Are there differences among institutions when it comes to these broad, statewide patterns? Yes, there are some different trends among institutions. Some institutions follow the broader pattern more closely than others. I invite you to visit EllieShockley.com to find institution-level trends in North Dakota higher education staffing. I have included trends for tribal, public and private institutions.
Ellie Shockley is a political psychologist, social scientist and education researcher. This column represents her personal views and not the views of any organization. She completed a doctorate at the University of Chicago and a postdoctorate at Nebraska. She lives in Mandan. Find her past columns at EllieShockley.com.